What did Rich Piana die from? All versions of the death of a freak bodybuilder

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When discussing the biography of Rich Piana, one cannot help but talk about his childhood, from which, in fact, his path began. The future fitness and bodybuilding star was born in 1971. Rich's mother was a professional bodybuilder, and it was she who inspired her son to take up bodybuilding. Piana first became acquainted with the world of iron sports at the age of 11, when he began going to the gym to watch his mother prepare for competitions.

Piana's workouts

The athlete's program was built on the principle of from least to greatest. He started with light weights and a few reps, then steadily increased volume, doubles, and tempo.

• If on Monday you worked on your torso and biceps;
• on Tuesday I combined back with triceps;
• the environment was allocated for pumping the shoulders and calves, forearms and trapezius.

The athlete constantly monitored local hypertrophy and to correct lagging areas . In addition, during the day I performed the “vacuum” exercise 3 times for a narrow waist. Each training session began with cardio. The program also included training in the evening with light weights for 100 repetitions. Usually this is how he pumped up his arms, doing dumbbell lateral raises and pumping up his biceps with repeated curls.

Steroid use

As you may have already understood, by the “dark side” we meant the use of anabolic steroids. Rich first tried illegal drugs at the age of 18, after a series of defeats. During the 8 weeks of the pharmacology course, he gained 12.5 kilograms, 10 of which were pure muscle. In addition, his strength indicators have also improved significantly: for example, his working weight in the bench press has increased from 140 kilograms to 160 (185 kilograms with a bridge). The result of this experiment with steroids was victory in competitions. Success turned the head of the young bodybuilding star, and Rich could no longer stop.

If you look at a photo of Rich Piana, you will notice that he has very unnatural muscle proportions. Piana injected polymethyl methacrylate methacrylate (PMMA for short), also called “plexiglass,” officials said. In the field of plastic surgery, this drug is used to correct scars, as a lip implant, etc. PMMA is very expensive and very dangerous to use, so its use without medical supervision can lead to negative consequences. In addition, the athlete himself admitted that to achieve his goals he used a dangerous substance called synthol. It is thanks to these drugs that the athlete has such a strange shape of his hands.

Rich Piana did not stop taking steroids until his death. Moreover, he even published a schedule of anabolic drug use on the Internet. Although Rich always urged his fans to stop using anabolic steroids, he himself said that he was completely satisfied with his choice and did not regret anything.

How did Rich Piana achieve sports success?

After the first steroid course, Rich's athletic success began to grow rapidly. Thanks to them, the 18-year-old athlete increased the weight on the barbell in the bench press from 140 to 185 kg . And this is just in a couple of months. At the same time, the body weight of the young man himself increased by 12 kg. As a result, Rich Piana began to win almost every competition in which he participated. The crazy success turned the guy’s head, which pushed him to continue using steroids. However, the matter was not limited to anabolic steroids.

Closer to the age of 20, the guy was seriously thinking about the total transformation of his body. It got to the point that Rich began injecting synthol and (attention!) liquid plexiglass into his muscles . The latter, by the way, is extremely dangerous for intramuscular administration and should be used only as prescribed by a doctor. In addition, plexiglass injections are not cheap and are used mainly in plastic surgery.

Despite the infusion of harmful substances into his body, Rich felt great and continued to transform his body. However, the impressive volumes did not help Piana win. The athlete took fifth, sixth, seventh places, and sometimes did not even make it into the top ten. At the same time, the most significant victories were first places at the Los Angeles Bodybuilding Championship in 2003, as well as leadership at the championship in Sacramento in 2009. However, after failing at national competitions in 2011, Rich ended his career as a professional bodybuilder .

Career

Rich Piana cannot be blamed for anything but laziness and idleness. At the age of 22, the athlete set himself the goal of earning money for a big and beautiful house at all costs. Day after day, he began to save a cent, saving on almost everything. As Rich said in one of his videos, at that time his diet consisted of 3 packs of ravioli and 24 eggs. To increase his carbohydrate intake, Piana added a little rice or oatmeal to his diet from time to time. According to him, he spent no more than 8-10 dollars on food per day. However, at the end of the week, he allowed himself to eat his belly in some catering establishment for the amount of 10 dollars. This went on for a year and a half.

As a result, months of restrictions and savings bore fruit: Piana managed to accumulate some savings, thanks to which he was able to start his own business. Until his death, which we will discuss in more detail below, Rich Piana was a successful entrepreneur and businessman. He bought real estate in Texas, had his own sports nutrition brand called Rich Piana 5% Nutrition, and also ran a successful YouTube channel with over a million subscribers. He devoted 34 years of his life to sports, and the peak of his success in bodybuilding occurred in 2009. It was this year that he achieved absolute leadership in the Border States Bodybuilding Championships. The most prominent part of the athlete’s body was his biceps, which according to 2014 data was 36 centimeters.

Victory at any cost!"

This motivating motto helped strengthen the bodybuilder's will. Already in his youth, he planned his future and looked for unconventional paths to his goal. This prompted him to accelerate muscle progression and inject metestosterone and decadurobolin. He administered the drugs one cube at a time once a week and observed the results. In 2 months I managed to gain 10 kg of muscle mass and 2.5 kg of fat.

For his 18th birthday, the guy gave himself a gift - he won a clear victory at the junior competition. He was incredibly inspired by the success, and he realized what could be achieved with pharmaceuticals. Rich Piana later talks about steroids:

“If the goal is to build a huge body, naturally, you can’t do without them.”

At his peak at 34:

• from a lying position I pressed 225 kg 3 times;
• trained my arms with barbell lifts of 125 kg x 3;
• squatted with a weight of 265 kg x 2;
• in the deadlift I lifted 265 kg once.

Death

On August 7, 2020, after taking psychotropic medications, Rich Piana passed out while getting a haircut in the bathroom of his own home. During the fall, the bodybuilder seriously injured his head. After the tragic incident, doctors immediately came home, but they were unable to bring the man back to consciousness. In this regard, the doctors decided to transfer him to the hospital and put him into a state of medical coma. According to official information provided by the police, 20 vials of testosterone and opiates (narcotic substances) were found in the mansion of the famous bodybuilder. The athlete died on August 25, 2020 at the age of 45, having never recovered from a medical coma.

We have presented to your attention the biography of Rich Piana, a photo of this athlete and facts from his life. We hope this information was useful.

Chest training program

Rich Piana would like all bodybuilding and powerlifting fans to go through his exercise routine and feel their untapped power in every cell of the body! It will be very hot here: powerful training aimed at the chest! Particular emphasis is placed on how many times you can press your own weight. When Piana first started training, he managed to perform a bench press of only 17 repetitions, but he needed to do 28! This really excited him and made him move forward.

By the way, the lower your weight, the easier it will be for you. Rich's weight is 130 kg, his record is 32 presses! He believes that those who can do this 30-40 times are incredible and amazing in their power! The main thing is that such people exist!

Piana's entire training consists of several exercises:

• Incline Bench Press
• Bench press on a horizontal bench
• Bringing hands together in crossover
• Dips with weights

But be careful: this is clearly not for beginners! You must know how to hold your back correctly and have assistants who can remove excess weight discs. Rich likes to combine his workouts. Now watch carefully how real men do it!

Biography

Born September 26, 1970. He grew up in a family of bodybuilders and was in the atmosphere of sports from the age of 6. This contributed to the fact that he began training from his youth at the age of 11. And already at the age of 15 he took part in his first bodybuilding competitions.

Rich grew well and progressed quickly, winning many local youth tournaments, and later won the title of Mr. California. He unsuccessfully tried several times to win the US National Bodybuilding Championship and get a professional card. Subsequently, the athlete decided to temporarily abandon competitive bodybuilding, but despite this he continued to train.

In the early 2000s, he began acting in commercials and appearing on television shows. Also participated in the filming of films. You can see the athlete in some episodes of such TV series as “Scrubs” and “Malcom in the Middle.”

In 2004, Rich Piana decides to compete at the US Bodybuilding Championships. Preparation for the tournament was spontaneous and took only one month. As a result, the judges rated the bodybuilder’s form as worthy of only 6th place. Piana decides to try her hand at a national level tournament again only in 2010. And this time luck was not on his side. Thus, the athlete’s best achievement was winning the Mr. California tournament.

However, the lack of medals and cups did not bother Rich much. Although he did not manage to distinguish himself with victories in competitive bodybuilding, the guy succeeded well in the real estate industry.

Even though Mr. California decided to focus his attention on another matter, he did not stop training and simultaneously conducted personal training. After some time, the big guy was noticed by the Mutant brand and offered the athlete a contract. After this, filming began for a series of stories about bodybuilding with the participation of Rich Piana, which brought great popularity to the athlete.

He subsequently left Mutant and founded his own sports nutrition brand, becoming a very successful businessman.

Competition history

Below is a list of some tournaments in which Rich Piana participated.

- absolute winner

*Border States Classic - championship of the border states

Photo: Rich Piana at competitions

Rich - steroids and synthol

Rich has repeatedly admitted to taking anabolic steroids and using synthol (or substances with similar effects). Such interviews created quite a stir among the public. In his videos, the athlete shared not only his experience and observations regarding training and nutrition, but also regarding pharmacology. He described his feelings, gave recommendations and warned about possible problems and outcomes that may be associated with taking large amounts of anabolic steroids and other illegal drugs used in sports. He expressed his opinion on pharmacology regarding himself, but never approved of the use of anabolic steroids and synthol.

Drug overdose

The police, who arrived at Rich Pian's house on Chanel's call, found scattered white powder on the table and a credit card with traces of this powder. The first thing 911 workers did was give him two doses of Narcan, a drug given to drug addicts when they overdose. But these injections did not help Rich and that same day in the evening he was put into a medical coma.

The athlete’s girlfriend did not deny that she knew about Rich Pian’s drug addiction, but was sure that he had long since “given up” with drugs.